Author's Log Stardate: 04042011

There are so many aspects of self-publishing that must be maintained - eBook publishing, print publishing, marketing, promoting, reviews, publicity, social networking and on and on. Those who have read my previous posts know that the subtitle to this blog of mine could be "THE TAO OF DEAN WESLEY SMITH." That's because I'm a devout follower of the master's teachings! If you haven't visited Sensei DWS's humble website, please do now (http://www.deanwesleysmith.com). Dean publishes three exhaustive and fantastic blogs, Killing the Sacred Cows of Publishing, New World of Publishing, and Think Like a Publisher. They are required reading for any self-publisher. In them, he talks about all of the aspects I mentioned above. However it all starts with writing (something Sensei Dean stresses)! If the writing isn't good then all of your other efforts will be like building a house on sand.

Which brings me to my challenges today. After writing eight chapters of _Signs of War_, I became unsatisfied with its direction. Then I started questioning what I already put on paper. I questioned the way I 'built' a new main character, I questioned the storyline and whether I should be tying together two of the subplots. By the time I got to actually opening the word doc, I was seriously considering hitting the <delete> button and starting over ... or not starting over ... starting an entirely different piece ... or not starting anything ... just giving up.

I get like that. After years of being married to a woman that studied psychology, I've become aware that I'm a bit of a manic depressive. After discovering that I was and accepting that I was, I was heartened to know that so many other creative people suffer from it as well. In fact, one of my favorite actors, Jeremy Brett who reached perfection in his role as Sherlock Holmes also suffered from manic depression ... but I digress.

My point is that ... before I hit <delete>, I read what I had written ... and it wasn't bad. I had to make several corrections but the story made sense, the characters came alive and the direction of the story started to flow again. Whew ... thank you Father!

I didn't get a whole lot of new words on paper today ... but then again, I didn't hit <delete> either ... and that's a good thing.

Tomorrow's another day!

End transmission

(Please feel free to leave comments – your comments can be as helpful as anything I write for others. I hope this series turns out to be less my talking at you and more – a group of like-minded storytellers that self-publish or intend to. Peace & God Bless!)